Cooking in Heels and Pearls.

Cooking for me is therapy...along with bubble baths, red wine, running and morning coffee in bed. 

If you have had the pleasure of watching me cook you know that my hair is always neatly tucked up, more often than not I am wearing a dress (heels off in my momma's house), there are pearls in my ears, country music (Randy Travis, George Strait and Alan Jackson) is playing in the background and my apron is the statement of my outfit.  I am "that girl" who dreams of the day she has her own home full of noise and children running through the house and a husband, cooking in a kitchen designed to her specifications, with a china pattern for each season, silver handed down from her grandmother and crystal from her mother.  I want family holidays and Sunday suppers and football games and showers all to be hosted in my home....someday.  As my Mother reads this post, imagine her saying "sweetie, you need to date first then the rest will follow". Yes Momma, I know I put the cart before the horse when it comes to dreaming of my future. 

I began collecting recipes a few years ago.  Four to be exact.  After realizing that I didn't need to read a recipe to cook, I began to write my own.  Each time I am in the kitchen, the aroma and sounds and tastes all bring back memories of holidays, birthday parties, celebrations spent with my family.  Growing up, the kitchen was the center of gathering.  The stove was always hot and Grandma or my Mother were running around pulling dishes or tasting dressings or letting us lick the bowl after brownies had been made.  To this day, the kitchen still bustles on weekends.  Only this time, it is me pulling dishes and calling to my Mother to ask about a time or temperature or to taste my chicken to make sure it is all the way done.  She still tastes my flour before I fry the chicken.  Someday Mom, I will tell my grandchildren about this memory. 

My first kitchen jobs were little.  Grandma would stand me up on a chair and as I cried "but Grandma I need an apron" she would pull a white, perfectly ironed, dish towel from the drawer, usually embroidered with something, fold it like a triangle and wrap it around my waist.  From there, we would begin.  My mixing skills quickened with age, my height increased and the chair was removed from the equation.  Now, in my kitchen, I have a drawer full of white, perfectly ironed dish towels, one for each day of the week and hand embroidered.  This past year, I became a young woman by homemaker standards:  Grandma sent me home with Great Grandma's crystal, my very own 3rd generation cookbook and my very first set of Christmas dishes. 

As I began to write my recipes and collect the favorites my Grandma and Mother had created, I realized a story goes with each as does a most important part:  a life lesson. 

I hope you enjoy the unpublished version of "Life in Heels and Pearls".  As my Grandma says "someday we can all say we saw you here first".

XOXO (all the way from MN),
Danika